


A Dollar Bet

by Zhelana



Series: Dollars Series [3]
Category: seaQuest
Genre: Gen, Prequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-08
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-15 16:41:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9245306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zhelana/pseuds/Zhelana
Summary: Nathan and Scott make a bet on the future





	

Butterflies flitted in his stomach. He was sure she could hear his breathing from across the elegant table. Nathan squirmed again. He caught his breath in gasps. Somewhere, as if from a distance, he heard her order, “lobster with a side of caviar.” It was the most beautiful voice he had ever heard. He ordered a steak, medium rare, and sat back again. He started to move forward, but lost his nerve and sat down again. Finally, he took one final breath, knelt on one knee and produced a small box from his pocket. More terrified than he had ever been in his life, he whispered the words, ‘Carol Mae McClennon, will you be my wife?” He waited, holding his breath, afraid of what the answer might be, until she reached forward and kissed him and replied, “of course” He slipped the ring onto her finger silently, then kissed her hand. He could breathe again. He was so elated he hardly tasted his steak dinner. She had really said yes! She would become Mrs. Carol Bridger!

He snapped to attention and stopped daydreaming. Almost every day he remembered that moment in vivid detail down to the taste of her finger as he kissed it gently. Now it was back to his current project. He was working on a translation problem with his friend Scott. They had gone through the Naval Academy together, but while Bridger had stayed with the navy, Scott had opted for the Air Force, with hopes of joining NASA. They were working on a program to translate speech into any other written language. Their databases were huge, and quickly getting out of their control. He wasn’t certain if the project could ever be fully done, at least before someone invented true artificial intelligence, but he did have significant portions of it finished. He relied heavily on google translate, but his addition was that you could speak instead of type to it. It would be limited, but it was a start.

He looked at his friend and grinned. “You know this is the technology that is going to allow us to communicate with aliens one day,” Scott started the familiar banter, which Nathan gladly joined in on, “the future is in the oceans. All this around us and no one uses it for much of anything. We’ve still got 80% of our resources and they’re under water. Why, one day maybe this technology will allow us to communicate with dolphins.

“it’ll never happen Nathan. Dolphins may be smart, and they may have sex for pleasure, but they aren’t talking in sentences or building structures. They’re a good show at sea world; that’s it.”

“I’ll bet you a dollar it happens in our lifetime.” Nathan retorted. “you’re on!” Scott laughed happily, certain he had just won a dollar off his friend, but equally certain that he would never see that money.


End file.
